


I've loved you for a hundred years; I'll love you for a hundred more.

by Coloured_Rainbow



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Secret Relationship, Spoilers for Story and Song, if the description seems really good just assume its griffin and not me lol, lots of lines are direct quotes from the podcast, rewrite of a scene but a lot is different, takes place during ep 67
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coloured_Rainbow/pseuds/Coloured_Rainbow
Summary: Finally, Merle conveys his line of sight to Lucretia. Where she stands in her bubble, the remaining streams of light from outside saturate the beautiful blues that adorn her robes and freckle her dark skin with hope directly from the universe itself. She slightly turns her head to the side and Merle can feel all of the breath leave his lungs at how perfect she is. All of his feelings toward her come rushing back at once and the overwhelmingness of it all makes it impossible for him to call out to her.





	I've loved you for a hundred years; I'll love you for a hundred more.

**Author's Note:**

> There is just not enough nice content of these two and i felt the need to change that.  
> Like the tags say, some of the descriptions are direct quotes from Griffin and I don't claim them as my own :P

In the 60 seconds that passed since Taako, Merle, and Magnus regained access to the part in their brains that held the memories of the last hundred or so years, a lot of stuff happened. They stand in the center of the main dome in the Bureau of Balance headquarters, struggling to stand after the weight of the revelations that was jammed into their brains. In front of them stands Lucretia, who is concealed inside of a semi-transparent bubble as she finishes up channelling the final bit of energy from the Animus Bell into her staff. Before Merle saw her, he glanced to the side to see Barry shaking as he tries to keep Magnus from falling over. Behind them, Noelle and Angus are barring doors and Davenport is watching in silence. Merle’s eyes trail over to the remaining open windows and he can see hundreds of Bureau members scrambling to escape from hoards of shadows. Above all of them is the Hunger. It’s a deep, deafening darkness that bleeds through the stars into the atmosphere and for the first time, Merle really knows that the apocalypse is inevitable. 

Finally, Merle conveys his line of sight to Lucretia. Where she stands in her bubble, the remaining streams of light from outside saturate the beautiful blues that adorn her robes and freckle her dark skin with hope directly from the universe itself. She slightly turns her head to the side and Merle can feel all of the breath leave his lungs at how perfect she is. All of his feelings toward her come rushing back at once and the overwhelmingness of it all makes it impossible for him to call out to her. 

Before he could bring himself to say anything, he watches as Taako stands up and points the umbra staff in Lucretia’s direction. She turns around and gives him a solemn look that makes tears blur Merle’s vision.

“Ten.” Taako demands, his voice forcibly cracking. “Nine.”

“Taako…” Merle tightly clutches his heart at the sound of her voice. “I-I know you’re upset--”

“Eight.”

As Lucretia scrambles for the right words, Magnus stands beside Taako and points his sword alongside the umbra staff. 

“Listen--” Lucretia attempts to continue, only to be interrupted by Taako once more. 

“Seven.” 

“Please listen to me. Please.”

“Six.”

Merle chokes on a sob, shakily making his way to his feet to face his two partners. “What the hell are you doin’?” His voice comes out small, weak enough to not gain anyone’s attention.

“Five.”

Magnus scoffs. “The chance to explain yourself was--hmmm--about a dozen memories ago.”

“And, honestly, seven seconds ago,” Taako nodded. “I’m doing this cool countdown--you fucking took everything from me.”

“I know that things went wrong,” Lucretia stated softly. “I shouldn’t have kept you all in the dark as long as I did--I swear, I had no idea how hard a task this was going to be. I know I have a lot to atone for, but please--just--I’m begging you: let me finish this. Then we can talk about it.”

Taako took a long pause. “...Fine.”

Taking a few steps closer to her, Merle shook his head. “W-What are you finishing?”

“I’m going to cast my barrier across this world and stop the hunger once and for all.” 

Merle flashed her a small, sad smile that made her visibly hesitate. “Aren’t they already here?”

“It’s not… It’s not too late, I can still--I can still keep them out.”

Barry attempts to talk, but Merle interrupts. “Please don’t do this. You-You know what will happen if you do. I know what you’re trying to do, but please.”

“You know, honestly,” Taako slowly lowers his umbra staff. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care anymore.”

“Taako,” Lucretia pleads. “Please just trust me. I-It’s--what we did to this world… you know it wasn’t right. We made a promise, almost a hundred years ago--”

Magnus opens his mouth to speak, but Merle shouts over him. “We can do this together! It doesn’t have to--have to be like this!” 

“Yeah,” Magnus nods. “We can--”

“Let me talk!” Merle shouts, making Magnus step back in surprise. “Lucretia. Please don’t do this. Please. You know me. It’s Merle. I--” He winces, bringing a hand to his head as another burst of memories shoots into his mind. 

“Merle.” A pained look settles on her face. “I have to. I don’t have a choice--I need to save us. I need to save this universe!”

Davenport clears his throat, stepping closer to the conversation. “Let’s leave. T-Taako, Lucretia, if-if we leave, we can start over. We get the ship and--and _everything_ starts over. Lup will even come back!” Taako flinches at the name. 

Merle frantically shakes his head. “We can’t run away this time, dude!” He lets out a dry laugh, taking another step towards Lucretia. “We’ve made lives here. All of the people, they--they’re relying on us!”

Angus steps out from his position by Noelle and flashes Davenport a panicked look before directing his gaze to Taako. “Sirs. Don’t--Don’t leave. Don’t leave us with this.”

Davenport shakes his head. “I’m sorry kid, but it’s the end of everything. If we get caught up here--Lucretia, where’s the Starblaster?”

Instead of replying, Lucretia sends another solemn glance in Merle’s direction. “I’m not running,” he raised his voice despite his body relaxing. “I can’t run again. We--What we’ve made here, the lives we have, we can’t leave that behind. We’ve spent too much time running.” Taking another few steps forward, Merle presses his hands against the bubble Lucretia surrounds herself in and talks in a low voice. “I know that we’ve reset our lives a lot of times, but we can’t again. The life we’ve made here isn’t perfect, but it’s home. Other people have that too. There are endless amounts of people out there in defenseless universes that are-are counting on us, even if they don’t know it. We can’t just sit and let that happen. And now that we have our memories, we can...” Merle sighed as tears fell down his cheeks and settled in his beard. “I sure missed ya, Lue.” 

Lucretia’s face contorts at the nickname and her expression is enough to raise questioning glances from Taako and Magnus. 

Before she can reply, a shadowed, opal tendril comes crashing through the top of the dome and the glass showers down like sharp, crystal rain. Out of the shadows of the black column step five figures that are made from the same opal substance as the tendril and the rest of the Hunger than incases the skies. A skeleton is the first to leap away from the others and pounce towards Carrie and Killian. An enormous disembodied hand, a humanoid figure with a cylindrical head, and a rhinoceros follow suit toward Taako, Merle and Magnus. Beside them creeps up Angus who nods in affirmation to Taako. 

Lastly, a centar bounds in Lucretia’s direction, only to awkwardly ricochet off of her bubble and towards Merle. He leaps to the side and the centaur blindly continues forward, attacking Davenport. Merle readies himself for a fight, but watches as Barry rushes to his captain’s aid, successfully helping him fend off the shadow. 

Taako lets out a sigh, his hands moving quickly to cast an incantation as he leaps at one of the oncoming shadow figures. He lets out a clever quip that Merle doesn’t hear as he starts to run back towards Lucretia. Magnus readies his sword, pausing before he can run to take Taako’s back. 

“Merle, where are you--what are you doing?” He wildly gestures to the opal enemies. “We’re kinda in the middle of a fight? There’s three of us and three of them, Barry and--”

“Magnus!” Taako sternly interrupts. “Let him do his thing--I need you!”

Magnus anxiously looks between his two partners before letting out a frustrated shout and charging in Taako’s direction, sword bared and ready at his side. 

As Merle reaches Lucretia’s bubble, he watches as she extends her arm towards something behind him, her breathing quickening. Merle looks in her arm’s direction to see a similar bubble surrounding Davenport appear just as one of the centaur’s fists come crashing down in an attempt to crush him. She shakes her head and, not allowing herself to be any further distracted from her work, turns around to continue extracting energy from the bell. 

“Lucretia!” Merle shouts, attempting to drown out the sounds of battle behind him. He can hear Taako shouting threats at shadows and Angus nervously asking questions and Magnus bellowing animalistically. It sounds like such a badass, righteous battle, but he can’t find it in himself to leave Lucretia’s side. “Lue. You need to--” he winces at the sound of a nearby magical explosion and a hardy laugh from Magnus. “Please. You need to stop. Lue, I--”

“Stop! ...calling me that.” She doesn’t cease her work, but he can see her outstretched hand performing the extraction spell begin to tremble. “It’s--it’s making this so much harder, Merle. Please, please stop.”

Merle wipes the drying tears from his cheeks, bringing his hands back up against the bubble. “Not until you listen to me.” He hesitates, glancing back at everyone fighting. “This isn’t you. None of this is you!”

“What would you know about me?” She asks softly.

“Everything!” Merle lets out a wet laugh, sniffing and wiping his eyes. “We spent over a hundred years together. We made the most of every timeline and--and--it was nice, but it wasn’t what we needed to do. We can’t just save ourselves, we need to help the rest of the people out there, or-or at least try.” 

Lucretia is silent for a moment before she softly sniffs, her voice quiet. “Why are you making this so difficult…?”

“Because I’m trying to help you.” He gestures behind him. “Look out there. Look at everyone working together and fighting! I’m missing out on one hell of a fight right now.”

Lucretia found it in herself to glance over her shoulder and, sure enough, everyone was working together; Taako and Angus are bouncing off spells; Magnus is back-to-back with them, knocking back any shadows that get too close; Davenport and Barry have their arms linked as they keep each other off of the ground and swiftly move in rhythm to dodge attacks. 

“We need to be a team,” Merle speaks up, making Lucretia snap her attention back to him. “No more secrets, no more hiding and running.” He gently smiles. “We need to work together again.”

Before Lucretia can reply, both her and Merle look back as a burst of flame rips across the room, a spell backed by a power that neither of them have seen in a long time. They can hear Angus frantically shouting something and Taako subduing him before stepping off to the side with the umbra staff. He gives it a hopeful look, something of a mischievous glint in his eye, before he holds it horizontally with both of his hands and brings up his knee to meet its middle, snapping the staff in half. 

It’s like a bomb goes off in Taako’s hands. There’s a sonic boom--a wave of force--that tears through the room, knocking Taako back 10 whole feet. Where he once stood, a red cloud of smoke forms from the tip of the umbra staff and snakes around the black tendril in the center of the room, exploding in a flash of bright white and orange and yellow and pink fireworks. The white-hot light climbs the opal column up into the sky and explodes across the room, knocking down anyone outside of the main party. As the light fades, so do the shadow figures, leaving nothing but a familiar lich adorned in red robes, their arms outstretched and still burning with magnificent flames. 

It’s Lup. 

Merle and Lucretia are far enough away that they can’t hear her talk, but they see her smile and bellow out something that makes Taako start laughing hysterically. Barry immediately comes running, albeit trembling, to her side. Everyone in the room stands in awe, but it’s not long before they’re all chatting and discussing plans and catching up. 

Lucretia shakes her head, bringing a hand up to her mouth and talking low enough for only Merle to hear. “I… I looked for so long. I never stopped looking… she was right there, how could I not see it?”

“She’s here,” Merle chuckles in disbelief. He takes a few seconds to collect himself before turning back to Lucretia. “Look, Lup’s here! She’s back. We-We don’t need all of this universe-blocking mumbo-jumbo to fix things. We’re fixing it! It’s working!” He looked up at her and they met eyes. 

“I-I can’t. I can’t stop this, I--”

“You can. Please.” Tilting his head to the side, his voice wavers as he fights back more tears. “Don’t leave. We need ya, Lue.” 

“Merle, I…” She laughs, wiping her eyes. After a moment, her hand flicks up and the bubble surrounding her quickly dissipates. “You never make things easy, do you?”

“S’kinda my job,” he mumbles, a small grin settling on his face. “If I don’t make your life harder, who will?”

There’s a long silence before Merle slowly extends his hand, brushing his fingers against Lucretia’s. Trembling, she takes his hand in hers, squeezing tightly. He traces his fingertips around her knuckles and takes a step closer. 

“Oh man,” he breathes, softly swallowing. “I missed ya so much. Can’t believe I didn’t remember ya.”

“Sorry about that,” Lucretia whispers, her eyes glued to each of their hands. “I shouldn’t have… it wasn’t supposed to take so long…” Taking in a deep breath, she closes her eyes. “I missed you too. It was… so hard to not say anything ...I’m sorry. To you. And to Lup. And Taako and Magnus. Everyone. I hurt everyone so much and I was only trying to fix it…” 

“It’s not too late,” Merle softly shrugs. “We still have time.”

“The-The Hunger is already here.”

“So are we,” he nods firmly. “We’re here and we’re gonna stop it.”

Lucretia lets out a shaky sigh, tears threatening to spill. “I-I suppose we can… try. I just. I don’t want to lose everything we’ve worked so hard for. I… I don’t want to leave another universe behind.” 

“I know,” Merle nods reassuringly. “I get it. It’s--god, it’s scary, I know, but it’s the right thing to do. We just can’t keep letting all these universes get destroyed. We have to stop it.” 

Lucretia nods back, nervously glancing in Lup’s direction.

“Go talk to her,” Merle suggests with a small shrug. “She’ll be happy to see you.” 

“She shouldn’t be. Not after what I’ve done.”

“Hey, I mean… _I’m_ sure happy to see ya.” Lucretia looks back at him in time to see a small smirk form underneath his beard. “No hard feelings. I’m sure she’ll feel the same. Everyone will if you just work with us.”

With a soft swallow, Lucretia hesitantly lifts her hand to cup Merle’s cheek. He brings up his own hand to cover hers, looking up at her over his glasses with one hazel, gold speckled eye: something that she really thought she would never see this close again. He leans into her touch, softly closing his eyes and letting his face settle into a somewhat pained expression. 

“I know we can do this,” he mumbles. “Ya just have to trust me.”

“I’ve always trusted you,” she replies almost before he’s finished. “I just… I thought closing everything off was the right thing to do. I thought--I thought I was protecting you.” Merle nods along as she continues. “Just like… with erasing your memories. And hiding things. And lying.” She lets out a resigned breath. “Okay. Yes. Of course--god, how could I _not_ trust you.”

Merle breaks out into a huge grin, raising both of his hands and gently places them on either of her cheeks. Her eyes widen in surprise, but she doesn’t resist as he pulls her head down to his height level. He looks into her stormy periwinkle eyes with the single one he has left working and gives up fighting back tears that come streaming down his face the second that she smiles back at him. 

She softly clears her throat, reluctant heat painting her dark cheeks a light shade of rouge. “M-Merle, I--” Before she can finish, he’s already leaning forward and pressing their mouths together. Lucretia sucks in a deep breath, taking in his scent and savoring how close he is. Merle smiles against her, sliding his hands down to her neck and pulls her in a little closer and she can’t help a sob escape as tears of her own start to spill. 

They seperate a few moments later when Lucretia can’t help but let out a small laugh, blinking away the wetness from her eyes. “Oh my,” she exclaims softly, still bent over at dwarven height. “I… I forgot how much I missed that.”

Merle laughs, rubbing his thumbs lovely across her cheeks. “I know. We have a lot lost time to catch up on.” With a sniff, he nods behind him. “C’mon. Let’s go kick some Hunger butt.”

Lucretia opens her mouth to say something, pausing at the sight of something behind him. “...Oh shit.”

Merle raises an eyebrow and turns his head to follow Lucretia’s gaze, stopping dead once he realizes that everyone else in the room is watching them. 

Taako’s eyes are comically wide, Magnus’ jaw is practically on the floor, Angus and Noelle seem more confused than anything, Davenport and Barry’s faces are blank enough to not know what they’re thinking, and Lup’s expression is borderlining on pissed. 

“Excuse me,” Lup shouted though the distance between them. “But what the FUCK?”

Lucretia snaps away from Merle and back to her normal height, her back straight and poised. Her face lights up a bright red and she looks away, covering her mouth with her hand. “I, uhm… Merle…” She mumbles accusingly. 

Taako can’t help but crack a flabbergasted--yet somehow smug--smile. “How-How long has this little thing been goin’ on, hm?” With Lup back by his side, all of the resentment he held a few moments ago seemed to disappear for the time being.

“Yeah, what the what?!” Magnus yells, shaking his head. “This can’t be a brand-new development, right? We look away from two goddamn seconds…!”

“Hey, how about that’s none of your damn business,” Merle retorts, placing a hand on his hip. 

“You can’t just…! Hold up!” Magus lets out a crazed laugh. “You can’t just make-out with the director of our company and--that’s Lucretia and she was just about to--! What! The fuck!”

“Actually, I can.” Merle huffs, folding his arms. “You know, I have a life outside you guys--I don’t tell you _everything_. And in case you didn’t notice,” he gestures to the Hunger outside, “we kinda have bigger fish to fry than an old-guy’s lovelife!”

“Put the Hunger on hold for a moment.” Lup demands with a dismissive hand, ignoring Merle looking at her like she’s insane. “I’ve been holding in telling Taako for a long time how excited I am that he’s dating the Grim Reaper and now I have to deal with this shit? I can’t leave for a few years without all of you falling in love without me around to see! Now that’s rude.”

“Can we go save the world now?” Merle asks with an exasperated sigh, throwing his hands in the air. 

“Tell me how long, then yeah, sure, we’ll save the world and stuff. But by no means is this over.” Her and Taako both gave Lucretia a stare that made her shrink down a little.

“Twenty years, happy?”

Everyone screamed at once, yelling something along the lines of “TWENTY FUCKING YEARS?!”

“Yep, you all are oblivious--now let’s go!” With reluctant groans and a couple last comments, the discussion quickly shifts back to the game plan on saving the world. Everyone huddles together as Barry pulls out a wand and summons a magical chest with everyone’s old weapons and Lup starts lining out key points of the mission and Angus chimes in with how he can help less directly and the whole time, Merle and Lucretia are back in the game. They listen intently to everyone’s words and chime in on their turns, all the while tightly holding hands and sticking by each other’s sides. A lot of work needed to be done between all of them, but for the time being, Lucretia was here and helping them and that was enough.

This time, they were going into the fight together and stronger than ever.

This time, they were going to stop the Hunger.


End file.
